Can one imagine a God who would approve of such behavior?
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I cannot imagine such a God but the old testament God seemed to approve of a lot of behaviour that I cannot imagine approving. Nearly everything I do believe in flows from the Golden Rule but I do not believe everything taught in the average Baptist church, even though I was baptized into a Southern Baptist church at an early age.
When Moses took the Jews out of Egypt to escape the growing oppression, he gave the Jews the Torah, the core of the Old Testament. Sure, the penalties for crimes were sever. So what. It was a code by the Jews for the Jews. So they muscled in on some inhabitants in the Promised Land. So what. That is the human way. Hordes have swept through Asia, Europe, and the Americas from the beginning of history.
The Jews (and their God) had no intention of world conquest. Their religion is peculiar to themselves in a tiny little place, Israel. Now comes Christ to spread the truth as a Universal truth, albeit through persuasion by peaceful reason. And, now comes the cutthroat Mohammad brandishing the sword to forcefully convert the world to his Allah.
For you to find equivalence in the God of the Jews with that of Mohammad's numbs me.